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Scaredy Squirrel at Night

As we explore what it means to be courageous, we thought it was time again to talk about our own fears. Scaredy Squirrel was just the character to give us inspiration!

Melanie Watt gives us the cautious, worried and fearful Scaredy Squirrel. My students also thought that Scaredy Squirrel had some other important character traits: organized, creative and persistent. Important to recognize his strengths of character! Early on in this story we realized that Scaredy Squirrel is not sleeping because of worries about what he might dream about. What can happen when you don’t get enough sleep? “You die, you actually do,” insisted one student. Others included things like “Your run out of energy”, “You need to have a nap” and “You get very hurt, red eyes.” You definitely get obsessed about what worries you!

Our response to this book today was to include our own bad dream anxieties. What do we want to avoid in our sleep?

We used this page as the inspiration:

And created our own “page” – Truman decided that he was afraid of both things and creatures.

Who isn’t afraid of that closet lurking across the room?

And how about fire? This made a lot of lists.

Big fear in our class? Lice! Even though we have quite a few of these critters making their way through our tresses! We fear they might not leave!

Like Scaredy Squirrel though, we realize that a good sleep is a great cure for an overactive imagination! Feeds our energy and calms our fears. Everything looks better in the morning! Sometimes what we need to feel brave is new perspective.